Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 3 December 2020
85. Deputy Sean Sherlock asked the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth the engagement he has had with the Minister for Finance or the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform on rates of pay and conditions for the early years education sector. [41064/20]
Amharc ar fhreagraI want to keep the pressure on the Minister in respect of pay rates in the childcare and early years education sector. We have sight of a report, Pathways to Better Prospects: Delivering Proper Terms and Conditions for the Early Years Workforce in Ireland, of which the Minister will no doubt be aware. It was produced by the department of work and employment studies at the University of Limerick. The research was partly funded by the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission. The report states that the sustainability of the sector is under pressure because "[t]he unsustainability is evidenced by a 2019 survey which found that 65 per cent of 3,200 early years professionals do not expect to be working in the sector in five years’ time". When will there be a sectoral employment order or some such mechanism that ensures we can retain staff and pay them properly?
I share the Deputy's commitment to ensuring that we have a well-paid workforce of childcare professionals. Improving access to high-quality and affordable early learning and childcare is a priority for me as Minister. I have spoken to both the Minister for Finance and the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform about this on a number of occasions and our officials are engaging intensively to progress the matter. Children need and deserve the highest quality of early learning and care experiences and current staff turnover rates in the sector are unacceptable. The primary cause of the high turnover rates is the terms and conditions and it is critical that this be addressed. I am leading on a number of actions to find an effective and sustainable solution.
The State is not the direct employer of early learning and childcare practitioners and, therefore, neither my Department nor any other can set the wage levels. The Deputy will be aware that in the programme for Government, there is a commitment to the creation of a joint labour committee for the sector, which could offer a mechanism to create a pay agreement. My officials are actively working to progress this in collaboration with colleagues in other Departments, including that of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, which has responsibility for this industrial relations mechanism. I have met representatives of SIPTU, the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, ICTU, and Childhood Services Ireland to discuss the issue of pay and the development of a potential joint labour committee. I hope that all the parties can continue to work together, that staff and employers will play lead roles in the process and that we can make progress in the coming weeks and months.
I am satisfied that work is also progressing on a new funding model, designed by the expert group. The model will be important to determine how, when we put significant State investment into childcare, we can ensure that one of the key deliverables is a well-paid early childcare workforce. I am happy to say the other element, the workforce development plan, is progressing rapidly. The Department of Public Expenditure and Reform is represented on both the expert group and the workforce development plan.
I welcome the Minister's response but I want to pin him down a little more in respect of what he said about joint labour committees. He stated that work is progressing, but it would be useful if we had more definitive timelines and if we knew what the expectations are for a successful outcome to that such that it can be guaranteed that there will be an improvement in the pay and conditions at the end of the process. The Minister told us that he and his Department are not the employer, but he is very mindful that the sustainability of the sector is in question because, even though there is increased demand for workers within the sector, that is not being met with increased rates of pay to reflect that demand. We would like to hear from the Minister a more definitive timeline and a sense of what his expectations are. There is a commitment in the programme for Government, as he noted. We would like to know when he expects that commitment to be delivered on.
There is sustained engagement between officials in my Department and representatives of SIPTU and of the new body, Childhood Services Ireland, which has been set up under the auspices of IBEC. I cannot give the Deputy a specific date today, although I would love to be in the position to do so. Nevertheless, there is sustained engagement and I hope that in a short number of months, we will have a clear indication of where we are going with that process. It is fundamental, which is why we are putting such efforts into providing it. It is one part of a wider issue, however, and the funding model will be important as well. There will be clarity on the funding model and key information from the expert funding group in the middle of next year, which can then inform my negotiations for budget 2022.
I believe the Minister to be genuine in the agenda he is pursuing on this. I welcome his reply and fully acknowledge that he cannot give a definitive timeline, and it is useful for us to have some sense of the workings, but we want this to end up as an interminable process that outlives the potential mandate of any sitting Government. The workers in the sector expect clear timelines and clear deliverables and it is reasonable that they should not have to wait two or three years before they see some light at the end of the tunnel, which is the essential point I am making. I want to keep the pressure on the Minister in respect of ensuring that we all move towards a scenario in this country whereby people are given a proper wage for the work they do and in recognition of their qualifications.
I fully agree with the Deputy and am very aware of the pressures that childcare professionals are under, from the raw data we get from work such as the report the Deputy mentioned and from my engagement at a constituency level. I have talked to childcare professionals and heard how they feel that having gone through significant training and education to take up the role, they are not rewarded. They feel they do not have any career prospects. That is why we are trying to bring together the workforce development plan, the expert funding model and the work we are doing on the joint labour committee.
It can never happen fast enough - I fully understand that and know that childcare professionals have been waiting a long time - but in the sphere of what we are doing in this part of my Department, this is an absolute priority. I have no doubt the Deputy will continue to put pressure on me with oral questions, and appropriately so.
